Oscidates

The Oscidates were an Aquitanian people of the western Pyrenees and their northern forelands, in the part of pre-Roman Aquitania lying between the Garonne and the mountains. They are known almost entirely from the list of Aquitanian peoples in Pliny's Natural History, which records them in two branches distinguished by Latin epithets, the Oscidates Montani ('of the mountains') and the Oscidates Campestres ('of the plains'). Pliny places the two branches at widely separated points in his enumeration, the Montani among the high Pyrenean peoples and the Campestres among those of the interior plateaus and plains. Both are poorly localised. Under the Empire they were absorbed into larger civitates, the Campestres being attached to the Nitiobroges of Agen. They are commonly identified with the Datii (Datioi), which Ptolemy associated with the town Tasta, and with the Gates mentioned by Caesar.

Name

Pliny names both branches in his list of the peoples of Aquitania, the Oscidates Montani among the peoples placed below the saltus Pyrenaeus and the Oscidates Campestres among those of the interior. The epithets montani and campestres mean 'of the mountains' and 'of the plains'. The base name also appears, without any localisation, as Obsedatus montanus et campester in the Notae Tironianae (1st century BC).

The Campestres are generally associated by scholars with the Datioi (Δάτιοι), which Ptolemy associated with the town Tasta, among the Aquitanian peoples. Paul-Marie Duval writes that Ptolemy probably wrongly divided the name. Jean-Pierre Bost and J. Clémens further identify the Campestres with the Gates whom Caesar names among the peoples that submitted to Crassus, applying to the manuscript reading Gates the same treatment Duval had proposed for Ptolemy's Datioi. By contrast, Duval treats Caesar's Gates as a separate people unknown to Pliny.

Ethnic identity

Like the other Aquitani proper, the Oscidates were not Celtic. They belonged to the pre-Roman Aquitanian population south of the Garonne, whom Caesar separated from the Gauls by that river. Bost notes a resemblance between the names of the Auscii, the Oscidates and the people of Osca (modern Huesca) south of the Pyrenees, which he relates to Strabo's remark on the kinship of the communities on the two slopes of the range. The name belongs to the large class of Aquitanian ethnonyms in -ates, which are concentrated in this region.

Geography

Oscidates Montani

Pliny lists the Oscidates Montani among the peoples of the high Pyrenees, between the Onesii of the Bagnères-de-Luchon district and the Sybillates of the Soule. Duval set them in this high-mountain zone, the second of the three regional groups into which he divided Pliny's Aquitanian list. They are usually placed in the Ossau Valley, but Duval and Bost both observe that this rests only on the resemblance between the names Oscidates and Ossau. Louis Maurin suggested that Iluro (Oloron) may have become the chief town of the territory of the Oscidates Montani under the later Empire.

Oscidates Campestres

Pliny places the Oscidates Campestres among the peoples of the interior plateaus and plains, after the Sotiates of Sos. Clémens located them in the Lugues, the area of the modern canton of Houeillès (Lot-et-Garonne), between Sos and the Garonne, a placement Bost endorsed. Their chief town has been placed at Esquieys, in modern Pompogne. The name of the people is held to survive in this toponym, and the late-Roman mutatio Oscineio of the Bordeaux Itinerary has been located here.

Ptolemy's town Tasta, if the Datioi are to be identified with the Campestres, was connected by Duval with the château de Tasta near Nérac. Bost regarded this identification as doubtful, since the sites bearing the name lie well east of the limit Clémens assigned to the people, and the toponym is common in the region. After the Augustan reorganisation the Campestres were attached to the civitas of Agen, that of the Nitiobroges.

Notes

  1. ↑ The manuscript reading in Caesar is Gates. Rambaud emended it to Boiates, which Bost rejects. Bost and Clémens instead identify the Gates with the Oscidates Campestres, whereas Duval kept them as a distinct people. The equation of Ptolemy's Datioi with the Campestres is, by contrast, widely accepted.

References

  1. ↑ Pliny. Naturalis Historia, 4:108.
  2. ↑ Duval 1989, pp. 726, 729.
  3. 1 2 3 Duval 1989, p. 726.
  4. ↑ Ptolemy. Geography, 2:7:11.
  5. 1 2 Duval 1989, pp. 733, 735.
  6. 1 2 3 Bost 2009, p. 51.
  7. ↑ Duval 1989, pp. 729–730, 735.
  8. ↑ Caesar. Bellum Gallicum, 3:27.
  9. ↑ Clémens 1980, pp. 4–6.
  10. ↑ Bost 2009, pp. 40, 51.
  11. ↑ Duval 1989, p. 733.
  12. ↑ Caesar. Bellum Gallicum, 1:1.
  13. ↑ Duval 1989, p. 722.
  14. ↑ Bost 2009, p. 109.
  15. ↑ Duval 1989, p. 732.
  16. 1 2 Bost 2009, p. 31.
  17. ↑ Duval 1989, pp. 731–732.
  18. ↑ Bost 2009, p. 108.
  19. ↑ Maurin 1978, pp. 262–263.
  20. 1 2 Duval 1989, p. 729.
  21. ↑ Clémens 1980, pp. 3–8.
  22. ↑ Bost 2009, pp. 12, 40.
  23. ↑ Clémens 1980, p. 7.
  24. ↑ Bost 2009, pp. 33, 42.
  25. ↑ Bost 2009, pp. 49–50.
  26. ↑ Bost 2009, pp. 15, 27.

Primary sources

  • Caesar (1917). The Gallic War. Loeb Classical Library. Translated by Edwards, H. J. Harvard University Press.
  • Pliny (1938). Natural History. Loeb Classical Library. Translated by Rackham, H. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0674993648. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
  • Ptolemy. Geography. Translated by E. L. Stevenson (1932).

Bibliography

  • Bost, Jean-Pierre (2009). L'Empire romain et les sociétés provinciales: recueil d'articles. Scripta Antiqua. Bordeaux: Ausonius. ISBN 978-2-35613-014-3.
  • Clémens, J. (1980). "Les Oscidates Campestres". Revue de l'Agenais: 3–8.
  • Duval, Paul-Marie (1989) [1955]. "Les peuples de l'Aquitaine d'après la liste de Pline". Travaux sur la Gaule (1946–1986). Publications de l'École française de Rome. Vol. 116. Rome: École française de Rome. pp. 721–737.
  • Maurin, Louis (1978). Saintes antique : des origines à la fin du VIe siècle après Jésus-Christ. Saintes: Musée archéologique de Saintes.